


Frozen in Death

by Miss_Swan



Series: Death and Ambition [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Arranged Marriage, Death, Deathly Hallows, Depression, F/M, Ice Elemental, Love, Neglect, Pureblood Politics, Slytherin, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-25
Updated: 2019-11-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21554266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Swan/pseuds/Miss_Swan
Summary: Annabella, daughter of Cadmus Peverell, is a lonely girl in a massive castle, neglected by her father, who is obsessed with his dead wife. Follow her through love, fear, hurt and death, until the end.
Relationships: Annabella Peverell/Malachi Gaunt
Series: Death and Ambition [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1564849
Kudos: 37





	Frozen in Death

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is a one-shot, and sort of a prequel to Dark Royalties, a fanfiction with a Tomarry pairing that I’m working on at the moment...
> 
> Enjoy!

Another creaking noise echoed through the massive manor making her whimper, curled up in her four-poster bed swathed in black, dark purple and deep red silks, all embroidered with silver threading, with heavy velvet midnight blue draping. Burying her head in one of the too many overstuffed pillows and cushions to muffle another whimper as she clenched her cat plushy, Annabella pulled the white animal fur that normally sat near her feet closer, shivering. She was scared, but she knew she couldn’t go see her father for comfort no matter how much she wanted to.

Ever since he came back from his latest adventure with her uncles, he had changed, for the worse. He was obsessed by something, spending days locked into his study without even as much as speak a word to her.

He had always been a distant and cold father figure, blaming her for the demise of his beloved wife, who died giving birth to her, but it was never this bad. Now it was like shewasn’t even there anymore.

She closed her ice blue eyes and tried to block out the noises, finally managing to fall asleep.

-o-

Wind played through her venetian blond hair as she sat on the cushioned window sill, starring outside with longing. Annabella had been confined to her rooms for a week because she had tried to run away after learning that her father had sold her off to the Gaunt’s.

On a richly crafted mahogany wood table a few feet from where she sat, an elaborate but cold meal sat untouched. If she was anyone else she would’ve thrown the food out window and the plate across the room if only to have the satisfaction to see the expensive china break in a thousand pieces... but she wasn’t anyone else. She was the Lady Peverell since the death of her mother at her birth. Pureblood etiquette and manners engrained in her brain by a string of tutors hired by her father, ever since she could talk and walk, kept her from doing something so unbecoming of a proper pureblood Lady.

It didn’t mean she wasn’t itching to do it. Because she really did, and it took all her hard learned self-control and her strongest occlumency shields to stop her from letting her despair, anger and resentment take over.

All she felt now was numbness. Always so numb, as if an impossible cold froze her heart and stopped her from feeling anything but emptiness.

Not that she cared. Emotions were a weakness she couldn’t afford to have in her situation.

Her father’s house elf, Tippy, popped into existence.

“Yes?” She inquired tiredly, not bothering turning around.

“Master asks yous to makes yourself presentable and come downstairs to meet your fiancé.” She squeaked.

Letting out a tired sigh, she rose, nodding curtly as she prepared herself mentally, reinforcing her occlumency shields.

Again, the numbness filled, almost like a comforting blanket enveloping her, protecting her from harm, from her own emotions. Emotions are a weakness, she told herself once again, like a mantra.

“Very well, tell him I will be there.”

“Yes Mistress!”

With one last look out the window, she turned towards her wardrobe, not noticing the frost slowly melting in the afternoon summer sun, where her hands had been moments ago.

Soon she was ready and made her way to the entrance, freezing at the top of the stairs when she saw the man talking to her father.

Many words could describe him. Handsome. Regal. Elegant. Wealthy. Commanding. This could only be one person; Malachi Gaunt, her fiancé.

“Ah Annabella! We were just talking about you!” Cadmus Peverell, her father, said with a wide grin she knew from experience was fake. She forced herself to return it and turned to the man she would share her life with and curtsied.

“Welcome to the Peverell home, Heir Gaunt. I hope you will enjoy your time here.” She said politely. He delicately took her offered hand and kissed the back of it gallantly, making her blush slightly.

“Thank you, Lady Peverell, for your gracious invite into your beautiful home. I must say your beauty rivals the tales I heard of it by far.”

Again she blushed.

“Yes, well, shall we retire in the family room?”

“Of course.” He agreed with a nod. Even that simple gesture was accomplished with impossible grace and she found herself admiring the man despite herself and her great reluctance to go through with this arranged marriage.

They made themselves comfortable in the sitting room, Mipsy bringing them tea and snacks.

This was going to be a long afternoon...

-o-

“Tell me, Bella, what do you want in life?” Asked Malachi out of the blue.

She lifted her head from where it was leaning on his shoulder and stared at him puzzled. They were sitting in the luxurious gardens behind the Slytherin manor. It was a beautiful summer day and she had practically moved in already, because at least he was here, unlike her home that felt empty even with her father there. Malachi’s mother, Sierra, had taken an instant liking to her and took every opportunity to mother her. His sisters, Azarea and Melody, were amazing young women that she instantly connected with, they became her adoptive sisters.

“What do you mean, Mal?”

“What would you like to do after we are married, when you’ll be finally free from your father?”

“I would like to travel.” She answered, closing her eyes and dropping her head back on her fiancé’s shoulder. “See the world, learn foreign magic.”

“Then travel is what we will do, as soon as we’re married. Where would you want to go?”

“Greece, France, Italy, Egypt...” she trailed off dreamily. “other places, of course, I’ll think of them later.”

“That sounds good.” He murmured into her hair. “Can’t wait.”

She chuckled.

“Me neither.”

-o-

Annabella stared at herself in the ornate body-length mirror, trying to reign in her emotions. Melody and Azarea had just left after helping get prepared, shooing away the house elves who were supposed to do so, for the sake of having a girl talk. She closed her eyes for a second and the temperature suddenly dropped, a slight wind picking up and snowflakes forming out of thin air, whirling around her. Frost crawled up her lace trail, covering it in delicate flower-like patterns made of ice. She opened her eyes taking a deep breath, the snowflakes dropping on her hair and the air was warming up again.

She was getting married today.

What a strange and scary and exciting thought.

With a last sigh, she grabbed the flowers waiting for her on her dressing table, white, red and black roses, and exited the room.

Annabella bit back a grimace when her father took her arm in a too tight grip as he escorted her to the aisle, as if he feared she would run away if she got the chance. She fought an eye roll. If he paid any attention to her at all he would know that she wanted to marry Malachi Gaunt and had no problem with it at all. During the last two years, he had wormed himself into her heart, slowly melting the ice walls she had built around it to protect herself of the neglect her father put her through during her childhood and teenage years.

He was galant and kind and smart, with a sharp tongue and quick wit and a wicked sense of humour, and the conversations they had in the Peverell or Slytherin gardens were the best times she had in years.

The vows were said, and the bond completed, and all the while she was feeling something she had never thought she would at her wedding ceremony; freedom. She was finally free from her obsessive and deranged father, and that filled her with joy.

She looked down at the ring that had just been slipped on her ring finger; a silver snake coiled around a garnet Lily, representing the union of the house of Death and Snakes. He husband’s was a matching snake with an emerald held snugly in its jaw.

They kissed, and that kiss sealed her fate to his forever.

-o-

The manor was too silent. Annabella knew something was wrong as soon as she entered her childhood home, two months after her wedding. Malachi and her had travelled all over the world, and she wanted to announce her father that she was pregnant. She hesitated to enter as she put a hand on the doorknob, echoes and memories of her lonely and hate filled past invaded her thoughts.

“Father? It’s me, Annabella. I came to tell you some wonderful news.” She spoke almost carefully.

Her worry worsened when she received no response.

“Father?”

She froze in her steps when she came upon of an horrific sight as she opened the door to her father’s study. Gagging at the horrible smell, covering her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her expensive ice blue robes, she stared at the decomposing body of her father, swaying slightly back and forth from the rafters, and her heart felt like it had suddenly become a chunk of ice.

She sunk to the floor, her legs unable to carry her weight anymore.

Her father had given up on her. He had chosen death over her. Was she really that undeserving of love? What had she done to make him hate her so much? Maybe she really was a freak, like the town people liked to call her behind her back or even in her face when she went to the market. Yes, that must be it, only freaks could make their parents hate them so much they would prefer to kill themselves than deal with them.

She didn’t notice the ice spreading under her feet, covering the whole manor with ice.

-o-

She woke panting and promptly vomited in the bucket placed thoughtfully next to her bed, feeling her husband rubbing her back softly. It had been months and she was still plagued by horrible nightmares every night. The fact that she was pregnant didn’t help.

“Nightmare again?” Whispered Malachi after a while.

She hummed in affirmative, still haunted by the dream she just had, featuring her father telling she didn’t deserve to live, that she should’ve have died instead of her mother. That nobody cared about her. That Malachi would leave her, and then she would be alone with her baby forever. She could still see the seventeen year old dream version of her unborn son, glaring at her, his eyes blaming for hating him the same way her father hated her. Asking her why she didn’t love him, why she didn’t care him. That everything was her fault, all her fault.

“Come here.” He pulled her into his arms, letting her cuddle into his arms. “It’s not your fault.” He murmured into her silky hair, as if he had read her thoughts.

After a moment of silence she spoke.

“But what if it is?”

-o-

Annabella cradled her son in her arms, an exhausted but nonetheless beaming smile gracing her fair face.

“What will you be naming him, my Lady?” Asked the medi-witch with no small amount of awe, gazing down at the minuscule human Lady Peverell had just given birth to.

“Marcello Malachi Gaunt.”

“A powerful name.” Was said in a deep baritone, as her husband entered the room, kissing her lips and their son’s head. He was followed by Ignotus, her only remaining uncle, who sported a fresh bruise on his cheek.

“Hey.” She greeted him with a smile and the former nodded in greetings.

“It’s good to see you and our child in good health, my love.”

“Don’t tell me you were worried about me, Mal?” She teased with an elegant and amused raised brow.

He grinned sheepishly, the expression looking somewhat strange on his aristocratic face.

“I might have... punched your uncle who was trying to keep me out before he stunned me.”

“You did that?!”

“Yes?” He said rubbing his neck awkwardly.

“That he did.” Confirmed Ignotus.

She chuckled, as did her uncle who was always more of a father to her than Cadmus.

“I love you.” She murmured to her husband.

“Love you too, Darling.”

-o-

“Nooooo!” The heartbreaking scream was accompanied by a sudden drop in temperature, as Annabella watched her husband collapse to the ground dead, struck down by a killing curse cast by one of the assassins sent after them by a rival family. The sight of the life leaving her husband’s eyes broke her mind and her last thought was that she was glad Marcello had decided to visit his best friend today, before everything for miles around the manor, including herself, turned to ice that wouldn’t melt for centuries.

When her son came home the next day, he was met with a heartbreaking sight. After mourning his parents for months he finally explored the manor and found his parents wedding rings, and his grandfather’s head of house ring, the only things that had miraculously survived the disaster, on the bedside table in the master room.

He stored his parent’s rings in the Gaunt vault and kept the lordship ring. Unaware that centuries later, one of his descendants, a self proclaimed Dark Lord would discover them and give his mother’s ring to his lover, the Lord Peverell of that time.  
Uniting the House of Death and the Snake once more.


End file.
